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> any platform providing secure end-to-end encryption would face a torrent of litigation I do not see this. By definition content transmitted with end-to-end
by carapace 6y ago
> any platform providing secure end-to-end encryption would face a torrent of litigation
I do not see this. By definition content transmitted with end-to-end encryption cannot be moderated. How would anyone but the sender and receiver know that a given message contains "illegal content"?
(I put "illegal content" in quotes because it makes my skin crawl, even though in practice I think some content should be suppressed (but I also don't want to be the one to say which content should be suppressed with the force of law because that's hard-to-impossible, and my heart's not in it.) It's a little like anti-smoking laws: technically a gross violation of personal freedom, but one that I'm not prepared to vote down until smoking is a fringe fetish.)
In terms of platform vs. conduit it seems to me that e2ee forces the service provider into the "conduit" category.
- akersten 6y agoI mean there is also a parallel effort led by Bill Barr and some folks in Congress that would effectively remove your S230 protections for running E2E anyway (EARN IT act), so it's a battle we're fighting on all fronts right now.
- carapace 6y agoI read up on that and, while it's obviously a naked power-grab and bad law IMO, it also seems to me to have the same loop-hole. I don't understand how a service provider can be anything but a carrier if the traffic is E2E encrypted.
- akersten 6y agoFacebook carries both messaging traffic and user-generated content. If they support E2E encryption in their messenger, the threat is that they are not "following best practices for law enforcement intercept" and risk losing their protections over the non-E2E user-generated content on their main site. The confusion is understandable because the two are unrelated in any technical capacity, but the DoJ seeks to twist their arm by taking away an existing legal protection for not making law enforcement's job easier.
- carapace 6y agoCouldn't they split into two companies?
- matheusmoreira 6y agoUnder this law, a host will be immune from liability only if they "assist government authorities to obtain content (i.e., evidence) in a comprehensible, readable, and usable format". A host that uses end-to-end encryption would not meet this requirement and would therefore not be immune from liability.
- carapace 6y agoIf I encrypt an email and send it over the internet would my ISP become liable?
- matheusmoreira 6y agoThe host is required only to "assist" the authorities so I don't think they'd be liable for that. The encryption process was under your control and short of disabling your internet access or cracking your machine there's nothing they can do about it. If they encrypted your email themselves on your behalf and threw the key away so that authorities couldn't get to it, they might be liable. Now that I think about it, sending malicious updates to a router might be one way they could be required to assist the authorities in their quest for lawful access...
- carapace 6y agoCheers! I use a web-hosted email provider that offers e2e encryption (done client-side with a Java app I think.) I don't actually encrypt any emails in practice. But it would be defeating the entire purpose if a service like this could read my encrypted emails (for the authorities or anyone else). Thanks for taking the time to reply.